Ieat iceberg lettuce salad once a year. I also play bingo -- or a similar church-hall gambling game -- only once a year, and, luckily, at the same time -- at the Mendocino Crab and Wine Days.

The weeklong celebration of Dungeness in late January culminates on a Saturday night with a rollicking, old-fashioned crab feed. That's where the iceberg lettuce and a raffle conspire to turn it into a magical evening.

I make the trek to Mendocino for all the above-mentioned reasons. I also go because I have been judging the festival's annual crab cake competition for three years. In fact, the crab cakes -- one version in particular -- are among the reasons that I scamper, lemming-like, to the North Coast and the town of Fort Bragg.

Sure, the crab-wine celebration is a public relations event. But it also has a cause: to raise money for Mendocino Coast Clinics, which serve uninsured and low-income individuals and families of the North Mendocino Coast area. More important, it's part of a long-lived tradition in coastal communities to welcome the crab harvest and to warm up winter days.

Under a big tent at Fort Bragg's Noyo Harbor, the festival crowns a crab cake champ among local restaurants and caterers. This year, the crab cakes from Harvest Market, a local fine-food grocery, took top honors.

Perhaps it was no surprise that the winner was the store's executive chef Margaret Fox, formerly of Cafe Beaujolais in Mendocino. This was the first-time entry for Harvest Market and Fox.

It was "just what I had in the cooler that morning," she said, a mixture of snow-white chunks of crabmeat and not-too-complex seasonings spiked with organic lemon zest. She made it even easier by using a commercial mayonnaise product called Lemonaise (see recipe).

The day before, however, I had feasted on a crab cake of another sort, from Mendo Bistro in Fort Bragg -- an incomparable, 1-inch-tall, crab-intense, nothing-else-but-lumpy-meat creation by chef-owner Nicholas Petti.

Petti has won the festival's crab cake competition for so many years that he now has been gently but firmly outlawed from it. This year, he was asked to supply all the crab cakes for the wine competition.

Petti's crab cakes, with straight-ahead crab flavor and texture, are worth a trip. He is so conservative with all ingredients, except for crabmeat, that his recipe calls for breadcrumbs on only one side of the cakes -- just to help the meat cling together -- and no more. He'd rather risk the crab cake coming apart than have it over-seasoned or over-bound.

He reveres lumps, using big chunks of leg and claw meat, and not just the body meat of the Dungeness. Unlike the East Coast blue crab, the Dungeness doesn't swim so it doesn't have the nugget of lump meat, the well-developed muscle that works the swimming leg of the blue crab.

At one point, when he placed a crab cake on a judge's plate and it split, Petti laughed and said, "Yup, they're always prone to fall apart." He estimates that one out of every three or four he serves is broken or crumbling.

After the contest, the judges unwind over paper plates loaded with crab and iceberg lettuce salad. I sat next to Fred Thompson, author of "Crazy for Crab" (Harvard Common Press, $32.95 hardcover). Thompson has flown in from North Carolina for each of the past five years to judge this competition because he likes this festival, and also because he considers Petti's crab cakes to be the standard-bearer. He has included a recipe for them in his book.

As we sat at the long, plastic-sheeted tables with 220 others, doling out iceberg lettuce salad from big, plastic orange bowls, I asked Thompson to sum up the tenets of a good crab cake.

"Use all of the crabmeat," he advises, including the leg meat chunks.

"Use a little seasoning. Don't overpower it with the binding, and handle the mixture as little as possible."

That summed up the characteristics of the two crab cakes we liked.

And then we turned to the raffle. After three years I've learned to throw myself into the community, clutching 20 raffle tickets and checking the numbers, passionate about winning the crocheted quilt.

As I said, magic.

Mendocino crab cakes

Mendocino's Crab and Wine Days take place in January, but next year's dates have not yet been set. For more information, visit www.gomendo.com or call (866) 466-3636.

For the crab cakes: Drain crab. Gently squeeze out excess moisture. Combine crab, 3/4 cup panko crumbs and green onions. Let rest for 10 minutes. Add 1/2 cup aioli and test mixture to see how it holds together. Add aioli as necessary. Do not overwork. Cakes should barely hold together. Form into 2 1/2-inch diameter cakes, about 1 inch thick. Place one side in a plate of breadcrumbs.

Heat oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until just smoking. Place cakes crumb-side down in oil. Do not crowd. Saute until golden, then carefully turn. Reduce heat to medium; saute until heated through.

To serve, mound 1/4-1/3 cup cabbage salad on a plate. Top with a crab cake. Dab with aioli, if desired.

INGREDIENTS:

2 egg yolks

3 cloves garlic

Juice of 1 lemon

About 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt

1 dash Tabasco sauce

1/4 cup very hot water

2 cups mild olive oil

1/2 bunch tarragon, leaves stripped, finely chopped

INSTRUCTIONS:

In a food processor or blender, place the egg yolks, garlic, lemon juice, salt and Tabasco and blend. Pour in hot water and blend for 15 seconds. With the machine running, add the oil in a thin stream until a mayonnaise consistency is reached. Stir in chopped tarragon.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Melt butter in a small pan over low heat and saute shallots until softened. Cool; mix with egg, zest, mayonnaise, parsley, Tabasco, pepper, salt and panko crumbs. Let sit 15 minutes, then mix thoroughly with the crab. Form into 8 patties.

Mix the panko crumbs for the coating with the sea salt and pepper in a shallow dish. Dredge cakes on both sides. Refrigerate at least 1 hour.

Pour oil about 1/4-inch deep into a saute pan, and heat over medium-high heat. Saute cakes on both sides until richly browned. Drain briefly on paper towels. Serve with a drizzle of Lemonaise Sauce. Serves 8